I love food illustrations and spend a lot of time thinking about cooking, meal prepping, gardening and painting. As a freelance food illustrator, whenever, a client contacts me to draw upon this combo of mini-obsessions, I'm thrilled!
This post takes an inside look at one of my creative processes, when it comes to food illustration - specifically fruit illustration.
This behind-the-scene look highlights a watercolor illustration I painted for PeachDish.com's for their series of Thank You Featured Artists postcards. PeachDish.com is a sustainable meal-kit delivery company.
Truth be told, there are multiple, mini-steps between each main step. However, this infographic provides enough of an idea to understand how the “magic” happens!
Beyond that, I wanted to keep the watercolor painting warm, atmospheric, ethereal and full of visual serenity.
1) Brainstorming & Mood boarding
This part focused on finding inspiration. I searched around for ideas in my sketchbooks, art journals and portfolio.
Then I decided on a tentative direction and created a mood board to collect visual references and inspiration for what I’m thinking about.
After that, I sketched out several very loose, small concept drawings to work out the general composition.
2) Sketching & Drawing
Generally, there’s one or two thumbnail that immediately stand out and I’ll select one to develop. In this case there wasn’t a clear winner, so I frankensteined a couple of them together to create a final pencil drawing that’s resolved and ready for the client to review.
3) Illustrating & Watercolor Painting
Since I have some good color references from the mood board photos, I only did some minimal color studies, mainly to test the final shades I wanted. I also want to make enough of each color I’ll be using, so the color is consistent and most importantly, the watercolor painting doesn’t have time to dry out.
I often work in multiple layers for realistic art. So, I start with the application of a very light first watercolor wash of the main color (or underpainting) and let that dry. Then I work my way up to the deepest contrasts and final details. In this artwork I ended up not using ink with the watercolor washes.
4) Backgrounds & Textures
Normally, if I were doing one piece in one go, I’d start with the background and do the focal point ( the peach) right after that. However, for this peach, I wanted to separate both. So I selected a swatch of acrylic paint from another project and uploaded it to a design software like Adobe Photoshop to tweak.
5) Digital Editing & Coloring
I played around with a bit of digital paint, coloring and filters until I found something that would make the peach pop. I chose to overlay the hand-painted background texture with splashes of brilliant, cerulean turquoise blue.
This decision instantly gave the peach illustration a striking, super atmospheric painted graphic art look.
6) Lettering Mock Up
Even though lettering was not part of the project, I did want to share a few examples with the client of what the final card would look like with a little bit of text. Some of the fonts found complimented the piece well and didn’t distract from the ethereal feel of the botanical art.
7) Illustration Delivered & Tear Sheet Received
After they received the 300 DPI, high resolution image, the client left a glowing review to publicly share their appreciation for the art they received and the process of commissioning art with the studio. They also generously mailed me 4-5 postcards for my records.
_________________________________________
Work With Me
Here’s a snippet of their feedback below. Read the full testimonial on my LinkedIn profile.
As a card-carrying travel lover, this whole experience made me hungry for organic peaches. One of these days, I might just go down to Georgia and satisfy my wanderlust with strategic visits to all the sustainable, farm-to-table farm destinations where the Georgia Peach grows.
_________________________________________
Work With Me
- To see what original art and art prints have been released and are already available for sale visit the art shop at United Wanderlust.
- Want to see more food illustrations? Explore them here.
- If you’d like me to commission a new art piece or license existing art for your own projects (marketing, book, editorial, stationery etc.), simply submit a request in my Illustration studio contact form with what you have in mind and we can go from there.
- Or, send me a note through the United Wanderlust shop's contact form.
_________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Written and illustrated by Patricia Jacques. I'm a freelance food & travel illustrator who works with watercolor and licenses artwork. I enjoy working with individuals and commercial clients with similar passions for slow food, slow life and slow travel.